Armour saw profit where others saw problems

11:33 PM,
May 15, 2013

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A 1938 biography of Philip Armour, "Armour and His Times," starts with a direct statement: "Philip Danforth Armour, greatest swine-slayer of the nineteenth century, is both label and folklore."

Armour was born on May 16, 1832, on a farm in upstate New York, one of eight children who worked the farm with their parents and were fairly well-educated for the time. The Armour folklore started early, with a tale of his expulsion from Genesee Seminary after he took an unchaperoned buggy ride with a young woman. In 1851, staked with $100 from his parents, he lit out for California with a group from ...